BBQ & Hotaru Matsuri In Momoyama-Cho

It's Saturday, June 7 2008,

and we find ourselves over at the Kashiwagi's pad in Momoyama-cho once again.

Always a great place to find yourself!

桃山町の恒例ホタル祭りに行ってきました。

雨の心配もあったけど、あまり降らずに楽しい楽しい一日でした。

まずはＢＢＱで腹ごしらえ

What brings us here this time?

As if the wonderful company and delicious food weren't enough!

Tonight there will be a festival held

just a stones throw from Mama & Papa Kashiwagi's home in the beautiful mountains of Momoyama-cho. It is called HOTARU MATSURI, and that means

lightning bug, or firefly festival! The rainy season not only marks the beginning of rice planting in Wakayama, but the magical and brief season of the hotaru, or firefly as well! Many firefly species need cool, clean rivers to reproduce. Eggs are laid in such aquatic habitats and the larva mature there until adulthood when they take to the land and sky. Because Momoyama Town has cool, clear rivers traversing and running through it like veins through our body, there are LOTs and LOTs of hotaru.

More on the fireflies later. First, we've gotta get cooking!

未来ちゃんのおじいちゃん・おばあちゃんから新鮮な鮎を頂き、さっそくビルがはらわたの掃除をかってでました。

I'll clean the fish

Japan consists of many islands, and therefore is in no shortage of coastline. Coastlines mean the sea, and the sea means seafood. Japan boasts some of the best seafood in the world. In the mountainous interiors however, folks have turned to the bountiful rivers in search of fish for thousands of years. One of the most prized catches is AYU or Trout, just as in America.

Here, I am gutting some fresh ayu purchased just before our shindig

Miku looks on

みつ先生、始めての鮎の掃除です。

Mitsu Sensei helps clean

Hide Sensei and Ami chan man (and woman!) the grill!

There is PLENTY of good FOOD!!

Scallops, or hotate and baby octopus, or tako are skewered and thrown over the barbie

Tofu, green peppers, sausage, and onions too!

Don't forget the KANI (CRAB)!

Now it's ready

......and it's time to EAT!

.......and eat........

......and eat.......

.......and eat!

あみちゃん作の「 小さいおっさん」

購入希望の方はこちらまで、連絡ください。

All the cool kids are here.

Chisai Osan even makes an appearance with his clone Chisai Osan 2!

Miku's here

The camera loves MIKU. Or does Miku love the camera????

Hide Sensei, Ami chan, Mitsu Sensei, Kayoko san, Ryoko san, Ryota kun, Risa san, Shuta kun, Miku chan, Atsuko san, and Wild Bill.

A recipe for a rockin' rollin' good time!

The Hotaru Matsuri is an event hosted by volunteers from the town. It's made possible through donations from locals. All those who help to support the festival are honored by having their names painted on traditional Japanese lanterns. This lantern says "Kumai Ryota". Ryota is Risa san's boy and Kumai is her married name.

The lanterns are lit and people gather from far and wide, though the majority of folks are local or have family roots here.

A crowd forms around a volunteer man who is smashing away at something with a huge wooden mallet.

Why this isn't just any volunteer man. It's Papa Kashiwagi! He's hammering away at rice. It's a soft, cooked rice which is beaten into a dough.

The rice dough is rolled into golf ball-sized clumps, stuffed with anko (sweet red bean paste) and served up warm. These rice dough blobs are called MOCHI. Some mochi are rolled in KINAKO, a sweet soy bean powder which tastes a bit like peanut butter to me!

It's an alien space craft

No, they're pods of radioactive goo!

A byproduct from some sort of nuclear power alternative research project.

No, they are neither of those things.

These pictures were taken in the black of night. The "pods" are in fact flowers. They are Hotaru-Bukuro Flowers, or Spotted Campanula, a member of the Bluebell family. Hotaru-Bukuro literally translates into "Firefly Pouch" or "Firefly Bag". It is a beautiful name, and one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life.

As we walked through the moist darkness along a babbling river, fifteen of us - old and young, we witnessed nature at it's most Divine. I have seen lightning bugs in numbers enough to make me feel lucky, but never like this. There must have been hundreds of them. The odd thing was that they seemed to gather in one big mass and stay inside the luminescent cluster, not venturing off to other available spaces in the night sky. There were several huge congregations like that, but one which had us all speechless. This particular group of hotaru was under a grove of trees and over the river. It would have been futile to attempt even a rough estimation of just how many individuals there were. What made the scene "doubly" incredible were the reflections

of each and every insect, shimmering on the black river's surface.

We stood awed by the glowing spectacle for quite some time and finally decided we'd better move on to check out one more spot before calling it a night, and heading home. Our gang hiked back up to where we had parked, at which time we resumed our respective places dispersed among three separate vehicles. I sat in the backseat with Atsuko and Shuta in Hide Sensei's jeep/wagon style car. Ami took the wheel and Hide Sensei was in the front passenger seat. He had been drinking beers as I had, and most of the others.

The drive to our next location took only a few minutes. There, Kayoko san advised us all to keep a sharp eye out for Hotaru-Bukuro. Our one and only handicap was that none of us knew what the hell it was! I was the most confused, what with Japanese not being my first language, or really even my second for that matter. Was Hotaru-Bukuro a little troll that comes out at night? Was it a mythical beast described in the annals of ancient Japanese literature? Is it just the nickname of a local man well known for the good advise he offers on choice places for viewing fireflies? I finally decided it best to ask Atsuko just what Hotaru-Bukuro was. Even after finding out that I was supposed to be looking for a flower, I didn't pay much mind to locating one. First off, I didn't have a clue what the flower looked like and neither did anyone else. Second, if I had known, it wouldn't have done me any good because I didn't have a flashlight. I could only see a veil of black on which were softly dancing flickers of neon green. However, shortly after Kayoko did finally find and pick some of these mysterious flowers, I realized why she had wanted us to make the discovery for ourselves.

The flowers of Hotaru-Bukuro are constructed of only a few long, velvety, white petals covered in tiny faint spots, all of which are fused together. The flower resembles a tall bell. When filled with a hotaru or two, the bell-like flower glows a soft green. On a single flower stalk there may be about six or so dangling flowers. I think the stalk Kayoko picked bore four flowers. She dropped a single firefly into each of the bells and held it up for her friends to see. It was so beautiful. At one point the fireflies synchronized so that they blinked in a kind of wave from left to right. This blew me away, as does the thought of it now!

このホタル袋っていう、リンドウに似た花の中にホタルを入れるとホタルの光で花が光るという仕組みです。ベストショットを撮るのに一生懸命になりすぎたビルが、あみちゃんと秀先生のお見送りもせずに、何百枚も写真を撮り続けました・・・。熱中すると誰も止められないんですね～。

柏木家の秘伝梅干の試食ビフォー

Back home again, Mitsu and I prepare to sample Mama Kashiwagi's homemade UMEBOSHI (sour-pickled plums) and MATATABI-SHU (Catnip whisky)

アフター

The umeboshi is a little sour

We wash it down with matatabi-shu

柏木家秘伝のまたたび酒（60～70度？）で口の中のすっぱさを消そうとする二人。ビルが翌朝軽い二日酔いになりました・・・。

That's some mean white lightning you bottled up there Mama Kashiwagi!

None of us will be driving home tonight. We're crashing here.

Everyone had predicted heavy rains for the next day, but it turned out to be a beautiful day without a drop. Before heading home we took a walk along a river that runs past the Kashiwagi homestead. Moments earlier, this little river had claimed one of Miku's sandals and I volunteered to try and fish out the missing footwear. First it was just Ryota and I. I marched and Ryota rode high on my shoulders. Soon though, the two man mission became a party. Looking behind me as I walked to the river, I noticed everyone (Atsuko, Ryoko, Kayoko, Mitsu, Miku, and Shuta were there coming up on us fast. We walked along the river and spotted many wonderful creatures like this Wrinkled Frog, or Tsuchigaeru. .....some beautiful flowers as well.
Tonosamagaeru (Black-Spotted Pond Frog)




Batta (Grasshopper)

These Tentomushi (lady bugs) really should have gotten a room or something.

In the end we discovered a load of awesome critters, but I couldn't find miku's sandal. Maybe next time.

Thank you for everything Kayoko san, Kashiwagi family, and EVERYONE

for a wonderful weekend!